Security, Counterterrorism, Education

Alessadro Ceci: Black Terrorism in Europe. An alarmed description

Cotermola has the pleasure to present you the article “Black Terrorism in Europe. An alarmed description”, written by the political scientist Alessadro Ceci. He describes the “new generation of black or nationalist terrorism , the one that is slowly coming down from Northern Europe towards the Mediterranean area”. We are grateful to The Glocal University Network , who made it possible for us to share their work with our readers.

BLACK TERRORISM IN EUROPE

An alarmed description

By Alessandro Ceci

In recent years, alternatively and sometimes in contrast with the general press on terrorism, we committed ourselves to distinguish the new typologies of terrorists: global terrorists, whose actions aim to instill insecurity in the global system of communication; local terrorists, acting inside the States; and the new typology of glocal terrorist, those local groups connected to an international network of terror. In the first category we have always placed the first Al- Qaeda organization, its management structure, whose first aim is to be included in the international geopolitics and so it is directed to the production of major events, those events that remain in history and spread in the global communication system. The second group is made of separatist terrorists, as New Ira, Eta or the Chechen Islamic terrorism expanding the constitution of the Caucasian caliphate. In the third typology we have always placed the long unknown and occasional series of temporary and often improvised organizations. They create the fundamentalist terrorism net on the ground, not always and not entirely connected to Al – Qaeda.

Where to place the new generation of black or nationalist terrorism , the one that is slowly coming down from Northern Europe towards the Mediterranean area?

During the past few years we have dealt to much with the Islamic terrorism, that is a problem related more to the international geopolitics than to revolutionary onset, and the analysts did not focus enough attention on the nationalist terrorism, that from the Northern Europe comes into the Mediterranean nations through the web.

Can black terrorist organization be classified as glocal, since it mainly surf the internet? Maybe not, as there is no connection in a single reticular structure. Despite of the web, I would suggest to place these groups in local terrorism typology, because, as we will notice, they are mainly focused on controlling their ground with the aim of reaffirming its identity, controlling and obstructing the migration movement, or expanding their ethnic group, as it recently happened in the Chechen Parliament, that has unanimously voted the expansion of the Russian ethnic group.

In November 2011, an Eurobarometer survey focused the attention on this rapidly growing phenomenon. This survey was published by the European Commission, that gave a general alarm asking the police and intelligence structures to react to the threats against security. However, the nationalist and Right terroristic organizations are constantly growing, maybe they look for a new particular synthesis in the relational bounds with the organized crime. Right in the promiscuity of these backgrounds, in August 2011 the UK police sequestered 1,2 tons of cocaine, during an unprecedented raid. Maybe they will not join together in a single network. They have the particular typology of those gangs that would hardly abandon their identification symbols. They form a real telematic nebula, that suddenly explodes in the less expected place and represents the proclaimed symbol of their aversion. In order to reach their goal and find from time to time the useful mass murderer, they must necessarily extend the political divulgation on internet, by catching militants on the base of a generalized insurgency, whose dynamic is similar, very similar to what happened with the Islamic terrorism propaganda; but unlike the fundamentalist web sites, the presence of black terrorists on internet turns often into real computer attacks, aimed to produce serious damages to the private and public security systems.

Their disruptive communicative action, which is not only promotional, strengthen our hypothesis in considering these terror gangs in the local area. This does not mean they are less dangerous. It only implies the persistence of an internal terrorism in mature democracies, that we considered to be defeated (or managed on the base of the insurrectionary anarchists’ s controlled insurgency), since we paid too much attention to the threat of the external fundamentalist terrorism.

Therefore, the Nationalist Rights movements arise in the network and they take its shape: selforganized, they do not need a centralized coordination or any “direction”. Their relational domain is made of supranational personal contacts, through various and different communication channels: from comics to music. The “white power music” concerts, indeed, represent a meeting and exchange platform for radicals and “attract hundred of militants from all over Europe” in secret locations announced only via internet, as the Europol writes in its last report.

Data are unequivocal:

· According to an investigation commissioned by Le Monde to Linkfluence, an institute specialized in web analysis and mapping, in France, blogs belonging to the extreme Rights are considerably increasing: about the 8% from 2007 until today, for the 12,5% of the 1052 political information web sites, analyzed by Linkfluence.

· According to jugenschutz.de, among the web pages created by the Right extremists, the social network pages are rapidly growing, where the swastika or Celtic cross mark is more and more present, even hidden. In one year the posts or the events published on Facebook, the videos on Youtube or on the other 2.0 web sites have exponentially grown, going from two thousand to six thousand. Also Twitter showed such growth, with 73 accounts of extreme Right groups in 2010, around the double by comparison with the previous year. On the 2.0 web there are videos uploaded on Youtube, that have been viewed about 190 thousand times.

The onset is definitely proclaimed. The Right extremists uses the web channels – above all the 2.0 web channels – : “The Right extremists are more and more active in the social networks, with the aim of achieving the younger generations”, as reported by Europol. This is not “a new dimension” of the threat. That is an internal terrorism that uses its available channels. In the society of communication it uses the communication channels, obviously.

We can divide the nationalist extremism (often belonging to the Right, but not always) into three big areas:

1. The North Europe. Mainly located in France and in Germany; of a neo-fascist and neo-Nazi nature, present in social networks (mainly on Facebook) with xenophobic messages and images, hard songs against the crisis and the strangers’ intrusiveness, with a very high rate of Islamophobia, in order both to maximize their capacity in mobilization, and to make their image more appealing.

2. The Balkan area. It is less present on internet than the previous one and more active with local nationalist formations that are managed with the aim of directly contrasting the entrance of their nations in the European Union; they are strongly connected to the transactions of the organized criminality. They have survived for many years in that fading boundary that has existed until a few years ago in that area, between legality and illegality, due to the general reconstruction climate. Since the Balkan States are gradually restoring the juridical bound between legit and illicit, these organizations tend to organize themselves in independent political instruments or, somehow, connected to extremist parties. They are very diffused in Serbia and Hungary. The Romanian terrorist organizations are still largely indistinguishable from criminal organizations.

3. Russia. This is a very complex situation. Only in the last year, about 2000 individuals and organizations connected to the nationalist insurrectional movements have been classified.

They are already known by the West intelligence, but the list shows that the Russian authorities have admitted the existence of the problem. The orbit in which those dangerous subjects act is composed by the fragmented representation of the groups around the Slavic Union, DPNL and the radical Left of the National Bolshevik Party. We subdivide the Russian nationalist terrorism, not necessarily black, into 4 distinct areas:

– the Independentists, who are nationalists but Chechen or Caucasian, however not necessarily (even if mainly) Islamic;

– the ethnic Russian, who want to extend the Russian ethnicity to all the republics of the federation, by law;

– the Russian nationalists, who are subdivided into different factions, among which there are also those who want leave the Russian federation, in order to define a more homogeneous Russian nation.

– the nostalgic groups of Soviet Union, nationalists of the old communist supremacy located in the satellite States.

In this moment of transition from a political system to another one, these organizations seem to be the best equipped. They are technologically skilled and present in the relational domain system of the social communities, they become transparent and mutant, from the ultras groups to the insurrectional hooligans, from the thematic mass media communities to the telematic circuit of pornography. Their relationship connected to the criminal organizations protect them somehow and strengthen the marginality sensation, necessary to their identity and to their own financial autonomy.

Certainly, an adequate contrasting action is needed. But, even if not at first, it is also necessary a politics able to communicate with the occult, silent and not dumb areas on the web.

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Professional profile of Professor ALESSANDRO CECIAfter his graduation in Political Science at LUISS (Libera Università Internazionale per gli Studi sociali– Rome) he managed (since 1983) different Research, Consultancy and Teaching Centres on Educational Technologies, Touristic Economic Models, Organization Science. In this field, he was involved in different scientific topics, especially concerning the study of simulation models, social and economic phenomena, political models related to the study of electoral systems, organization and theory of games. Scientific Director of Consorzio per l’Università di Pomezia and Professor of Political Philosophy at LUM Jean Monnet University, he taught and teaches in different Italian Universities (Sapienza, L’Aquila, Roma Tre,) international (Belgrade) and telematic ones (Glocal University Network). He is Head of the Department of Epistemology and Logistics – Consorzio per l’Università di Pomezia.His studies for the scientific elaboration had a direct application and an enhancement in Criminology, especially in the area of Intelligence and Security.

He has also been Scientific Head of Ce.A.S.- Centre for Advanced Studies on Terrorism and Political Violence and of the Research Society C Cube s.r.l.